When last we met we were talking about my efforts to stick it to the man via our student magazine. The upcoming issue is themed around sex and I’ve been doing my bit to relate it to ethicalism. Just because it’s a guilt-free, joyful pleasurefest doesn’t mean I can’t turn it into a baffling ordeal of moral dilemmas. I’ve been looking at porn.

By which I mean I’ve been examining the issue. It’s a controversial one, with opinions ranging from “It objectifies and degrades women, representing and reinforcing harmful gender stereotypes” to the equally articulate “Phwoar.” As ethical types we need to figure where we stand.

First, if we’re going to talk about it we should acknowledge that porn encompasses a range of things across a range of mediums and shouldn’t be thought of as one big amorphous blob. There’s a difference between violent porn that mimics sexual assault and refers to its performers as sluts, and a couple posting their homemade video online because it floats their boats. Second, we should acknowledge the role we play as potential consumers. If we buy a banana we choose between Fairtrade, organic or evil and our choice supports one standard or another. If we use porn we support the industry that produces it and the behaviour it exhibits.

Let’s start at the top. There we have our industrial porn, where massive companies churn out a massive amount of work. There we have the largest production company in the US raking in about $100 million a year. There we have men and women who risk contracting sexually transmitted diseases and women whose bodies are surgically mutilated and pumped full of silicone as parodies of beauty. There we have people paid to have sex, people we would refer to as prostitutes and likely look down on if they weren’t being filmed or photographed for our viewing pleasure. There we have a caveman view of gender politics: The men are studs, the women sluts to be used. Viewers, as consumers, let this happen.

Below that we have the kind of softcore that’s become acceptable almost by stealth. Top shelf magazines covered their nipples in the mid ‘90s to move down a shelf in the halfway respectable form of Maxim and Nuts and eighteen other kinds of copies. Walk into a newsagent’s, you’ll find these magazines on show, their covers filled with women wearing nothing but a square inch of gaffer tape where it counts. Their headlines tell us how up for it they are, just like the women on the cover of last week’s. And because they have articles about cars and Playstations and the odd bit of TV we can pretend they’re just blokes’ magazines; nothing to do with the objectification of women, just the male equivalent of Cosmo. Except Cosmo never called me an up-for-it slapper looking to get laid according to your fantasies. Readers, as consumers, let this happen.

Below that, influenced by the output above it, we have the pornification of mainstream culture where fishnets are marketing tools, where young singers pose for albums covers like they’re gagging for it, where Katy Perry writhes naked in her videos and twelve-year-olds wear Playboy T-shirts. And here we have the twist: that sex is selling like it always has but now we pretend it empowers these women, now they’re liberated and strong and sexually confident despite looking the same as the exploited, stereotyped, degraded women of a 1970s Pirelli calendar. We let this happen.

These hierarchies of porn are linked to each other and to continued gender inequality. We can’t have an equal society where this stuff exists. We can’t become a country where women are no longer treated as sex objects, where sex itself is free from gender bias and abuses of power when every morning three million people turn the front page of The Sun to have a look at a pair of tits.

As it stands, the ethics of porn are pretty grim. But in theory at least, porn doesn’t have to be exploitative and demeaning, it doesn’t have to be unethical. Porn is just nudity and sex filmed and photographed, and nudity and sex are fine and dandy and gender neutral. Porn doesn’t have to exploit people, like banana growers don’t have to exploit people. There could be ethical porn – fair trade porn – where both sexes are treated equally, where no one’s demeaned or humiliated, where no one’s taking money for sex, or if they are it’s as a genuine lifestyle choice instead of for crack or from daddy issues or from society telling them just that’s how it goes for good looking girls. But that seems unlikely. As ethical types and as potential consumers, we’ll have to float our boats someplace else.

You’ll have noticed the Zero site isn’t actually officially live yet. I say you’ll have noticed, actually you won’t be able to have noticed because the site isn’t officially live for you to read this yet. But when the site is officially live and you come across this entry in the archives, you’ll notice that at the time of writing the site wasn’t officially live yet.

Sorry, that was a complete waste of a paragraph. That’s how it goes with paragraphs around here. They always start out with the best of intentions but somehow they lead themselves astray. Look at this one, for example. It’s gone from apologising for a rambling first paragraph to criticising itself. That’s two in a row now. Better cross your fingers for the third…

At the point at which you noticed, you’ll have noticed the site isn’t actually officially live yet. On the one hand that’s giving me the time I need to polish the articles ready for the launch but on the other it’s denying humanity the chance to better itself through my teaching. That’s quite the ethical dilemma. Happily, a solution has presented itself in the form of the university’s student magazine.

I’ve taken a regular page to spread the Zero word to the 2,000 potential readers on campus, 4 of which are likely to actually read the thing and 2 of which are likely to find it mildly diverting. The first issue looks at setting up ethical homes, having left behind the tyranny of the “while you’re under our roof” parental decree. That takes in environmentally friendly energy, recycling, water conservation, buying second hand, buying Fairtrade, ditching plastic carrier bags and opening ethical bank accounts. The next issue covers sex so I’m doing a bit on the ethics of porn and how viewers are unwittingly supporting filmed prostitution and gender discrimination. It’s so right on it’s practically a 1980s lesbian peace camp.

The old Zero charm’s been diluted somewhat, with most of the gags and all of the smut being cut to the point of not being very funny any more. It’s as if I told a joke about a chicken crossing the road and all reference to the chicken was removed along with the punchline, and it instead came across as a po-faced examination of motorway resurfacing within the East Cirencester local authority boundaries. But them’s the breaks out in the world. Besides, calling Bono a fanny probably isn’t the done thing.

Still, I’m getting out there. It would perhaps be too egotistical – some would say even delusional – to compare this minor effort to the launch of the Internet, the publishing of the Gutenberg Bible, or the carving of the Ten Commandments. But I’m going to. It’s as big as all those things. Probably bigger.

And so to the latest adventures with the wormery. You’ll recall how in the absence of a garden I couldn’t get a composter and how I’d gone for an indoor wormery that would turn worms into my slaves, forcing them to eat my scraps and poop out a rich, nourishing compost. It’s not been the most successful of my many successful successes.

First there was the hilarious incident where I covered the floor and my feet in liquid worm poop. Then there was the time I opened it up and stank like I’d taken a dip in the Bog of Eternal Stench and had to take two showers with washing up liquid to get clean. And we’re talking Fairy Liquid here; that environmentally friendly stuff made out of leaves and happiness wouldn’t have touched that shit. But after those initial setbacks I successfully managed to get one lot of poop compost from the wormery to my potatoes. Glory be, it was looking like the effort was paying off.

Then the maggot infestation set in.

I don’t know if you’ve ever had to open up a wormery and dig through rotting food and worm poop and scrape out a bunch of maggots and maggot eggs that were covering the sides from top to bottom and then felt like bleaching the inside of your nostrils until the foul stink of misguided environmentalism faded but if you haven’t let’s swap lives using the technology established in a number of 1980s high concept teen comedies because it’s an experience I could have done without. Which is unfortunate because last week the maggots were back and I had to do it again. How I laughed.

In summary, then: nuts to it. That’s the end of the wormery. This time when I dug through a wormery full of rotting food and worm poop and scraped out maggots and maggot eggs I also had to pick out every individual worm and rehome them in the three square inches of earth we have in the back yard because, God damn, that’s how inconvenient vegetarianism can be at times.

I’ve bought a composter. I don’t care if it has to sit in a shared back yard at the consternation of other residents, it’s going to sit there. And if any of them complain I can remind them of the times they all stole my bike or broke into my car or made me snitch to the police with their violent hijinks. It’s made from recycled plastic, holds 330 litres and only costs a tenner thanks to government subsidies. It’s brilliant. And if it doesn’t work out I’m abandoning the whole environmentalism thing and going on a rampage to remove every tree from the surface of the earth, sexually harass endangered species and use propellers from the nearest wind farm to mash up Al Gore’s stupid fat stupid face.

The first of every month brings with it two important things: a needlessly aggressive pinch/punch combo for my friends and loved ones and the announcement of the Charity of the Month. So without further stalling, hesitation or ado, let’s begin a paragraph that delays announcing it.

Even though it’s knackering me financially, being back at uni is a bit of a treat when viewed against the lives of others in developing countries – as are most things when viewed against the lives of others in developing countries. I’m getting to learn stuff so I can do stuff that’ll help people, and when I’m done I’ll end up on a half-decent salary. Education’s good like that, changing lives, making things better and such and such. Nelson Mandela apparently once said, “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” He’s consulted the Spice Girls and Alan Titchmarsh. The man knows what he’s talking about.

This month I’m giving to Schools for Africa, a project run by UNICEF, the Nelson Mandela Foundation, the Hamburg Society for the Promotion of Democracy and International Law, and the Alan Titchmarsh Memorial Fund. They work together – without Alan, obviously – to raise millions of dollars to help millions of children in Sub-Saharan Africa.

The project has raised more than $70 million and reckons it’s already supported four million children in Angola, Malawi, Mozambique, Rwanda, South Africa and Zimbabwe. It’s now aiming for Ethiopia, Madagascar, Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso. We’ll go for some of that. My donation could buy learning materials for 10 children in Zimbabwe or Malawi, or student kits for four kids, each containing a bag, an atlas, maths tables and stationery. Yours can do the same, right here.